A day after 'wholesale' releasing defendants, juvenile judge doesn't show up for court

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A day after he made waves by asking a string of juvenile defendants whether they planned to kill anyone before simply releasing them, Judge Glenn Devlin - who lost his bench Tuesday in a Democratic sweep - didn't show up to court.

His court coordinator on Thursday wouldn't say where he was, whether it was a planned absence, whether he was on vacation, or when he might be back.

"Maybe he is reflecting upon the merits of his new release policy," said Harris County Chief Public Defender Alex Bunin.

Meanwhile, the ACLU of Texas is asking the state's judicial commission to look into the jurist's post-election actions.

"We call on the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct to investigate Judge Devlin for violating the canons of judicial conduct," said Sharon Watkins Jones, ACLU of Texas director of political strategies. "It is improper for a judge to make orders motivated by partisan interests or spite as a result of his political loss."

The civil rights organization is still considering whether to file its own formal grievance with the state, though the commission declined to say whether Devlin's actions would constitute any violation of judicial canons.

The furor kicked off Wednesday morning, when the long-time Republican jurist surprised attorneys on both sides by releasing nearly every defendant who appeared before him.

"He was releasing everybody," said public defender Steven Halpert, who watched the string of surprising releases. "Apparently he was saying that's what the voters wanted."

Prosecutors pleaded with the judge not to release some of the children, and Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg condemned the seemingly indiscriminate releases.

"We oppose the wholesale release of violent offenders at any age," Ogg said Wednesday. "This could endanger the public."

In total, the judge let out seven kids - including four charged with aggravated robbery - during detention hearings. By law, youths who are waiting in local lock-ups before their cases are resolved are entitled to detention hearings every 10 working days to decide whether they need to stay behind bars or can safely be released under supervision.

It's not abnormal for Devlin to sometimes release juveniles facing serious charges, as long as they've behaved in detention and have adequate supervision in place on the outside, according to Halpert.

"He's not one of those that never releases a kid charged with an aggravated robbery," he said. "But nobody has seen this before."

The judge reset all of Wednesday's cases to Jan. 4, the first Friday after his successor takes the bench.

When attorneys showed up for court Thursday, it wasn't clear what to expect.

"I wasn't here yesterday, but I sure wish I was," said one lawyer, who asked not to be named.

Ultimately, the judge did not turn up for docket and cases were instead handled by Associate Judge Stephen Newhouse.

After declining to comment a day earlier, Devlin did not answer his phone when the Chronicle called on Thursday. His Democratic successor, Natalia Oakes, has not responded to requests for comment.

The outgoing Republican jurist, who was among the 59 judicial positions swept away by Democrats in Tuesday's election, is one of two juvenile court judges in Harris County whose track records favoring incarceration contributed heavily to doubling the number of kids Harris County sent to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department in recent years, even as those figures fell in the rest of the state.

A Houston Chronicle investigation last month found that Devlin and Judge John Phillips accounted for more than one-fifth of all children sent to the state's juvenile prisons last year. The two jurists not only sent more teens to juvenile prison, but they also sent them younger and for less-serious offenses than the county's third juvenile court, where Judge Mike Schneider presides.